A shedding streak isn’t any enjoyable in any endeavor, however going 5 years with out a single victory is sort of unimaginable.
Unless you’re the Massachusetts Republican occasion.
Finally, on Tuesday, the native GOP posted a “W,” in a particular state Senate election to fill a emptiness created by the resignation of a Democrat legislator.
The winner was state Rep. Peter Durant, R-Spencer. He acquired 11,985 votes to 9,813 for the Democrat candidate, who can be an incumbent state rep. No recounts needed. It was a transparent victory, the primary GOP takeaway of a Democrat seat since 2018, possibly longer.
The lesson is, although Massachusetts received’t be a two-party state once more any time quickly, possibly the Republicans don’t need to lose each single election, perpetually.
Unless, after all, Jim “Jones” Lyons or one in all his deranged followers returns from exile subsequent 12 months to reclaim management of the GOP state committee.
Lyons misplaced his House seat in 2018, so he determined to take over the state committee. As the previous saying goes, the job wanted the person, and the person wanted the job.
Mostly, the latter.
Lyons drove the MA GOP the way in which Thelma and Louise drove their getaway automobile. Straight over the cliff.
Under Lyons’ lunatic management, the occasion misplaced 10 of its 38 seats within the 200-member legislature, together with three of six senators.
The GOP additionally misplaced two sheriffs and one district legal professional. It was defeated in each single referendum query it acquired concerned in, and sometimes didn’t even accumulate sufficient signatures to make the poll.
The Jim Jones Lyons faction turned often called the Kool Aid Kult. They didn’t care about successful. They employed personal detectives to tail different Republicans. They moved funds round to pay for lawsuits towards GOP committee members. They didn’t have time or cash sufficient to fret about successful elections.
One of the Kool Aid Kultists, incumbent Sen. Ryan Fattman, simply needed to pay $207,000 to settle campaign-finance violations involving his household and the state committee.
Another made-man in Lyons’ Kool Aid Kult, former Sen. Dean Tran, was simply indicted by a state grand jury on a second set of felony expenses. Various probes and lawsuits are ongoing.
This is the context of utter dysfunction through which Durant ran, and amazingly received. It was additionally a serious victory for the brand new state occasion chairman, Amy Carnevale, who’s attempting to dig out from the rubble of destitution and scandal that the Kool Aid Kult left behind.
Carnevale defeated Lyons when he astonishingly sought reelection as occasion chairman regardless of his abysmal report. In his crackpot reelection marketing campaign final winter, Lyons toured the state attacking not Democrats, however his fellow Republicans. It’s their m.o.
In January, at a kind of Kult revival conferences, in Sturbridge, Durant confronted Lyons over his wacky expenses. They nearly got here to blows.
But the unhealthy blood between Durant and the Kool Aid Kult dates again even additional, to the first marketing campaign for lieutenant governor final 12 months. Durant’s spouse, Kate Campanale, a former state rep, ran towards the Kool Aid Kult’s chosen kamikaze.
The Kult unfold essentially the most scurrilous rumors about Campanale. She was, in spite of everything, a Republican. To repeat, the Kult doesn’t care about destroying Democrats, solely Republicans.
“Just the things they said about my wife were absolutely horrible,” Durant stated Wednesday night time on my radio present. “No one should have to go through that kind of stuff. And to have your own party do that to you is deplorable, if I can use that word.”
Since their ouster, the Kool Aid Kult has been flailing, and never simply due to all of the fines, indictments, unemployment and a number of law-enforcement probes.
Jim Jones Lyons and his prime deputy, a perennial loser named Geoff “DoorDash” Diehl, desperately wished to get on the Trump marketing campaign practice.
Somehow they have been handed over – possibly any person despatched Trump the story about how UPS is suing Lyons’ little flower stand for alleged non-payment of $70,000. Or maybe somebody reminded Trump of how Lyons tried to kneecap POTUS in 2016 by working for Ted Cruz. (Lyons misplaced, however then, he at all times loses.)
When Durant started working for the open Senate seat, the Kool Aid Kult recruited a candidate towards him – too unhealthy she wasn’t a registered Republican. So the Kult’s fallback candidate was the man from Gardner who had simply misplaced the state rep’s race towards the Democrat who was working for the open Senate seat.
In different phrases, Lyons’ anointed Kultist would have had no shot of successful.
But the Kult doesn’t care about successful. The Kult is allergic to successful. They simply wished to beat the man who’d offended them… by successful. So they known as him a “RINO.”
Durant vanquished the Kult’s backup candidate within the GOP main after which crushed the Democrat Tuesday. Guess who instantly started calling and texting Durant election night time because the outcomes rolled in.
That’s proper, a few of the main lights of the Kool Aid Kult, together with one man who in 2016 was with John Kasich and is now carrying water for Ron DeSantis. And these pathetic losers surprise why Trump gave them the again of his hand.
“They did leave messages,” Durant stated, “but unless the messages contained apologies for what they’d done, their congratulations were empty as far as I was concerned.”
In different phrases, when the Kool Aid Kult’s telephones didn’t ring, they knew it was Durant.
That wasn’t the one beating the Kult absorbed Tuesday night time. When Shaunna O’Connell was within the legislature, one in all her closest allies was DoorDash Diehl.
Now she’s the mayor of Taunton, and Diehl does regardless of the Kult orders him to do. Shaunna was working for reelection, and Diehl confirmed up for a rally for her opponent. He even posted a photograph of himself with Shaunna’s opponent on his Facebook web page.
Now Shaunna is reelected with 60% of the vote and Durant shall be sworn in as a senator subsequent week.
And now the Kool Aid Kult is attempting to recruit extra candidates… for the state committee. They wish to lose much more elections.
Vince Lombardi as soon as famously stated, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
Unless after all you’re Jim Jones Lyons and his Kool Aid Kult. For them, shedding isn’t every thing, it’s the one factor. And Sen.-elect Peter Durant (and Mayor O’Connell) simply spoiled their occasion.
(Order Howie’s new ebook, “Paper Boy: Read All About It!” at howiecarrshow.com or amazon.com.)
Source: www.bostonherald.com”